Candidates hoping to replace John Prescott as deputy leader of the Labour Party were accused last night of misusing their government positions for political advantage.
In the latest sign that the deputy leadership race is turning nasty, Peter Watt, the General Secretary of the Labour Party, was urged to investigate whether members of the Cabinet were misusing “government apparatus”, paid by public funds, to support their campaign.
The four declared candidates are Alan Johnson, Hilary Benn, Peter Hain and Harriet Harman. Three are in the Cabinet and Ms Harman is a minister of state. All four appear regularly on television and all but Ms Harman have special advisers to support their political work.
Hazel Blears, the Labour chairman, is believed also to be mounting a bid, causing concern at a potential conflict of interest between her role and her political ambitions. Jon Cruddas, the left-wing backbench MP, is the only candidate to have declared who is not a member of the Government.
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Jon Trickett, the chairman of the Compass Parliamentary Group, which represents left-wing MPs, has written to Mr Watt claiming that MPs are concerned about the separation between “government apparatus” and candidates’ campaigns. Mr Trickett said that special advisers should not be used to promote and run political campaigns, although he emphasised that he was not aware of any individual cases.
“You cannot have people who are paid for by the taxpayer for one purpose being used for another purpose,” he told The Times. The special advisers to Mr Johnson, Mr Benn and Mr Hain are involved with the deputy leadership race directly, answering media inquiries. Ms Harman fields calls herself. This could bring the special advisers into conflict with the code of the Cabinet Office, which governs the conduct of special advisers.
This states: “Special advisers should not use official resources for party political activity. They are employed to serve the objectives of the Government and the department in which they work. It is this which justifies their being paid from public funds and being able to use public resources, and explains why their participation in party politics is carefully limited. They should act in a way which upholds the political impartiality of civil servants and does not conflict with the civil service code. They should avoid anything which might reasonably lead to the criticism that people paid from public funds are being used for party political purposes.”
The move will be seen as beneficial to Mr Cruddas, who is not invited to debate publicly with the other candidates, according to Mr Trickett. Last night Mr Cruddas addressed a Compass event in Westminster. Mr Tickett condemned a decision by the Labour Party National Executive Committee to hand over 15 per cent of raised funds directly to the party. He said that such a move would weaken the debate within the party.
Mr Trickett said: “It would seem absurd that Cabinet members who by virtue of their posts have daily access to the mass media and by extension to party members can publicly criticise the ideas of non-Cabinet candidates, yet when opportunities arise to hold comradely debate on serious issues, the Cabinet candidates unite in their rejection to the proposition. We must not miss the opportunity, early in this parliament at a time that would not be electorally sensitive to us, to hold a free, frank debate on the direction of our party.
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“I watched the French socialist party hustings recently, which were robust, all encompassing and open. As a result, a popular candidate was selected and the standing of the party in the opinion polls increased.”